RPG Diary

Dragon Quest VIII

Honestly, I have been disappointed with the Dragon Quest series so far, and the previous one was one of my least favorite RPGs in general. Perhaps I should just abandon the series already, but I'm cautiously optimistic because this particular game appears to be very popular online. This was the first Dragon Quest game made after the Square Enix merger, and there's a new developer too, so I'm hoping things are different this time.

Title	Dragon Quest VIII
Year	2004 (US 2005 )
System	PS2
Developer	Level-5
Publisher	Square Enix

The first thing I immediately noticed was how good this game looks. Unlike the awkward 2D/3D combination of the previous game, Dragon Quest VIII is fully 3D and Akira Toriyama's art really stands out with the cel shading. And while it is a very minor detail, I also liked finally seeing the party characters during battle. Finally, the full voice acting (apparently absent in the original Japanese version!) makes the game feel more modern — or at least from beyond the 16-bit era.

Dragon Quest games tend to feature a bunch of small independent stories in every new town, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a strong central narrative this time. The main villain is introduced immediately and their actions during the game gave me kept my interest to keep playing, which is a big improvement over most of the previous games. There are also very few side quests to derail the main story, which helps keep the story moving at a good pace.

I was very happy to see that the grind-heavy job system from the previous two games was replaced by a skill system. Skill points are earned by leveling up which (somewhat) eliminates the need for extra grinding, but instead means there is a limited amount of skill points. Unfortunately, I had some anxiety about spending skill points since the game does not allow reassigning them. Worse, the game does not even really explain what or when skills are learned, so I needed a guide to ensure I got the most important skills (e.g. metal slime hunting skills). However, even though there are clearly better skills, the game seems managable regardless of skill choices.

Ultimately, Dragon Quest VIII was kind of like a "comfort food" RPG for me — there is nothing particularly unique or new about it, but I did enjoy it greatly. It was a successful transition to full 3D, while still maintaining the nostalgic feel of 90's RPGs. It is undoubtedly my favorite Dragon Quest game so far.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. I found Dragon Quest VIII consistently entertaining from start to finish, even if there was nothing particularly unique about it. I'll go so far as to put it above Final Fantasy VI which starts off amazing but loses my interest in the end.

Final Fantasy XVI

While my plan to play all of the Final Fantasy games was well underway when Final Fantasy XVI was released, I did not own a PS5 at the time. Now that I have one, I can finally play the most recent game and claim to have played every game in the series. I didn't follow the pre-release hype and I've managed to avoid spoilers, so I'm going into this one fairly blind.

Title	Final Fantasy XVI
Year	2023
System	PS5
Developer	Square Enix
Publisher	Square Enix

This was the first game in the series with a M rating. There are several violent and bloody scenes, and there is a lot of profanity. This was jarring for me at first as it didn't feel like Final Fantasy, but I got over it eventually. While the series has always had dark themes and brutal moments, I wasn't comfortable playing the main story in front of my children, so it was harder for me to find time to play.

As expected of the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy XVI has a big story with a lot of dialogue. There is a lot of politics and intrigue which reminded me of Final Fantasy XII. However, I thought this game does a much better job balancing that with the individual characters and their motives.

Overall, I enjoyed the story. There's a lot going on in this game and I was surprised by a few of the plot twists. I was a little disappointed how some of the plotlines turned out to be somewhat insigificant in the end. I was particuarly interested in both the second dominant of fire and Anabella's scheming, but both of those plotlines kind of fizzled out unsatisfyingly. (I still don't really understand what actually happened at Phoenix Gate in the prologue.) I also thought the final villain did not explain their motives very well, so I lost some interest towards the end of the game.

Perhaps the most controversial thing about Final Fantasy XVI is the combat. Personally, I didn't think it was that big of a leap from Final Fantasy XV. I enjoyed unlocking new abilities during the game, but it seemed like many of them were not that useful. Smaller enemies are laughable, so the only things that really mattered were staggering large enemies quickly and dealing burst damage during the stagger. I did quite enjoy the eikon battle sequences as they were exciting and broke up the monotony.

The worst part of the game are the boring fetch quests, and thus most of the side quests. I thought there was generally good pacing and balance between the story scenes and the gameplay, but the tedious fetch quests just grind everything to a halt. The vast majority of side quests in this game are just a bunch of bland dialogue, marching across the map, and maybe a fight against some common enemies. Worse, most of these quests only grant common commodities as rewards, which makes the whole thing a waste of time. Of course, side quests are optional, so most of these can be skipped entirely. The few side quests that actually bestow something useful are even marked with a different symbol in-game, seemingly acknowledging that everything else is filler. Unfortunately, there are some mandatory fetch quests mid-game that cannot be avoided — this part was easily the worst section of the story.

I was also disappointed that gear and levels did not seem particularly important. While there are visible stats, the gains are small and I never noticed any big improvements after upgrading or leveling up. (Power jumps were primarily due to new abilities instead.) In my opinion, these are defining fetures of the RPG genre, so you could argue that Final Fantasy XVI is more of an (story-rich) action game than an RPG.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. I generally enjoyed Final Fantasy XVI, but the side quests were awful filler that dragged the game out. I'll place it below Final Fantasy IV which was more streamlined and consistent.

Dragon Quest VII

I know very little about Dragon Quest VII. There are a lot of RPGs on the PlayStation, but I rarely hear about this one. The last two games in the series left me a little disappointed with their thin stories, so I'm approaching this one with mellowed expectations.

Title	Dragon Quest VII (US Dragon Warrior VII )
Year	2000 (US 2001 )
System	PSX
Developer	Heart Beat
Publisher	Enix

Dragon Quest VII is such a strange game that I'm not even sure where to begin.

It's the first (and only) game in the series on the PlayStation. In my opinion, the game does not make good use of the console. Visually, the game does not fully commit to 3D as there are 2D sprites layered over 3D backgrounds. These 3D backgrounds have low quality textures, so the whole thing looks very ugly to me — I very much preferred the pure 2D aesthetic of the SNES games instead. I was also disappointed with how there are barely any FMVs. Somehow this game spans two disks, but I have no idea what all that space was used for!

Once again, Dragon Quest VII has some good plot ideas, but there isn't enough story to keep my interest. The majority of the game is centered around a fairly unique and interesting concept: restoring the world, piece by piece like a giant jigsaw puzzle. This was fun for a few hours, but it moves at such a slow pace. Additionally, the game has many segments without any battles and/or requires backtracking across many screens. Honestly, it felt like the game just does not respect the player's time. You could even argue that the main story doesn't really begin until 50 hours in, which is just absurd.

The core gameplay is very similar to Dragon Quest VI, with a hierarchical job system unlocked several hours in. Unfortunately the jobs seemed even less balanced than before! 0 MP skills are still vastly better than magic spells, and insanely powerful skills (e.g. SwordDanc) are available very early. It was very frustrating to see so much effort and variety in the job system, only to find that most of the jobs were completely useless. On top of all this, it felt like jobs leveled very slowly, perhaps because of the long periods without battles.

Party composition was also a huge source of frustration for me. There are several points in the story when a party member abruptly leaves for long periods of time. When you factor in the slow grind of the job system, this could be diastruous — for example, what if that party member was your primary healer? Plotwise, some of these events felt like weak writing, reminding me of the awkward excuses for party changes in Final Fantasy IV. For reasons unknown, the wagon mechanic of previous games is absent. By the end of the game, you are left with 5 characters but only 4 party slots. Again, factoring in the slow grind of the job system, this means someone is the odd one out and left to rot for the rest of the game. (I picked Melvin, because Maribel was my only mage. Besides, Melvin was pretty underwhelming and unconvincing as the legendary hero...)

Finally, while it's not really significant in the grand scheme of things, I just need to vent about this plot twist: I am still pissed that Kiefer abruptly left the party permanently about 15 hours in. I thought he was the most interesting character, and he was easily my favorite. He was also the strongest character at that point, so the party shrinking from 4 to 3 characters was really painful for awhile.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. I did not enjoy this game very much, so the only question is how low to place it. NES RPGs like Final Fantasy are thin and grindy, but they are much shorter than Dragon Quest VII which is just way too long and slow. The story was more interesting than Lightning Returns though, so I'll place this above it.

Dragon Quest VI

Like the previous game, Dragon Quest VI was not originally released in the US so it's a lesser known title. Despite this, I've actually played this version before. That was a long time ago, so I don't remember much, but I do have some fond memories of it. I'm looking forward to playing this one again.

Title	Dragon Quest VI
Year	1995
System	SNES
Developer	Heart Beat
Publisher	Enix

Dragon Quest VI starts off very strong. I thought the "two worlds" plot device was done well and I was very interested in the mysteries introduced early in the game. Unfortunately, after about 12 hours (after defeating Mudo) the story falls apart. Much like Dragon Quest V, the game sort of devolves into just exploring the map without really advancing the main story. Major villains are basically just stumbled upon and immediately defeated without much foreshadowing or buildup. The plot does regain some focus at the end, but by that point I had lost interest.

The game starts off very simple. Like Dragon Quest IV, several characters join the party and gain abilities on level up. However, after about 12 hours, a job system is unlocked which really changes the game. Like Final Fantasy V, jobs are leveled independently of the character's level and leveling jobs grants new abilities. In addition to the 9 starting jobs, there are 7 more hybrid jobs that are unlocked by mastering other jobs. I really enjoyed this mechanic and unlocking hybrid jobs for my party.

Unfortunately, the jobs are not well balanced. Previously, Dragon Quest offered a choice between basic physical attacks and various magic attacks that could either be high damaging or hit multiple targets. Jobs in this game only grant abilities — they do not permanently affect stats. To compensate for this, a bunch of "skills" were added for physical jobs to unlock. Skills cost 0 MP and some are very strong or hit multiple targets. Basically, skills are just 0 MP spells, which is totally broken. Magical jobs have their moments here and there (Firevolt is very strong if you rush to it), but by the endgame I was using only physical jobs.

Monster catching returns from Dragon Quest V, though with an additional limitation — a party member must currently be in the Beastmaster job. This really sucks because the Beastmaster job is otherwise not very useful, so there is little incentive to use it. I recruited a few monsters early, but once my designated character mastered Beastmaster and changed jobs, I did not replace them. Given how the job system works, it's difficult to justify replacing a character who has progress in multiple jobs with a new monster anyway. On the plus side, monsters are able to learn jobs just like regular characters, so I do think it was worth it to recruit a few.

Ultimately, I was disappointed with Dragon Quest VI. Like Final Fantasy XII, I really enjoyed the game in the beginning, but the game drags on and I just wanted to get it over with. I think this game has some really good ideas but it does not execute them well.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. It's kind of a tossup for me between this and Dragon Quest V, but I think the latter was a little more consistent.

Dragon Quest V

Dragon Quest V was not originally released in the US so it's a lesser known title. Still, it seems fairly popular now since the remakes were released here. I played this game a bit when I was younger, but I ultimately abandoned it for reasons that I cannot remember. I enjoyed Dragon Quest IV, so I'm looking forward to trying this one again.

Title	Dragon Quest V
Year	1992
System	SNES
Developer	Chunsoft
Publisher	Enix

Dragon Quest V's story is divided into three chapters which span nearly 30 years of the main character's life. I thought this was a cool idea that I have not really seen before. While I really enjoyed the childhood part of the game, I kind of lost interest afterwards. I was disappointed that the villains introduced in the first chapter did not seem important during the rest of the game. I also thought the story lost momentum in the second chapter when the hero starts just wandering across the world without much going on. Despite this, there were a few memorable twists in the story that did surprise me. However, the whole marriage to childbirth sequence in the second chapter happened way too fast and felt forced.

Dragon Quest V is credited with being one of the earliest games to feature "monster catching". This is a bit of a misnomer as it's really just a random chance that a defeated monster may join your party. While cool in concept, I found it fairly underwhelming. The monsters did not seem well balanced. Monsters that learn healing spells (or more rarely, reviving spells) are far more valuable since you can spam their spells from the wagon. Slime Knight gets both healing and great stats and equipment, so it stayed in my party the entire game.

The party size was reduced from 4 to 3 in Dragon Quest V and I think this makes the game less interesting. With only three slots, I found my party pretty much reduced to the hero, the strongest physical attacker, and a healer. This was disappointing because the game throws so many different characters at you, but most of them did not seem to be worth using. Remakes of this game have since increased the party size back to 4 again.

The AI party members from Dragon Quest IV return, but this time there is an option to explicitly select actions for them instead. I thought this was a great balance — I used AI to plow through mundane random encounters, but was still able to use spells (healing!) effectively during boss battles.

Ultimately, I was disappointed with Dragon Quest V as it didn't live up to the hype I saw online. I'm sure most people are playing the remakes instead, so I'll have to try one eventually to see if they flesh out the story better. I also have some doubts about the accuracy of the translation I used, so I am interested in an official translation.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. I was fairly indifferent about Dragon Quest V. I had similar feelings about Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, but that at least has the fun monster collection aspect.